EDITOR'S NOTE: A previous version of this story misidentified Eco-Cycle's Center for Hard-to-Recycle Materials as the county's recycling center.

Inside a naturally lit Boulder warehouse Tuesday, Alex Dance chucked plastic computer pieces into a cardboard bin, wound up telephone cords and set aside circuit boards in a different pile.

The 23-year-old Boulder native is one of the first four employees with disabilities hired to sort loads of electronics at Eco-Cycle's Center for Hard-to-Recycle Materials (CHaRM)because of a new partnership between the city's recycling facility and Blue Star Recyclers.

"We get paid to tear stuff apart," Dance said.

Alex Dance, left, and William Timmons load up televisions to be shipped out at Blue Star Recyclers area in Eco-Cycle's Center for Hard-to-Recycle Materials in Boulder on Tuesday. (Paul Aiken / Staff Photographer)

At a ribbon-cutting ceremony Tuesday, Eco-Cycle Executive Director Suzanne Jones said the joint venture is two-fold by solving how to provide meaningful jobs for an under-employed population and what to do with electronics waste — one of the fastest-growing segments of waste stream.

"We used to package that stuff up, send it to Denver and elsewhere to have it processed," Jones said. "But now it's going to happen on site, keeping those dollars and those jobs locally."

Between Station 2 and 3 of the drive-through facility in east Boulder, newly-installed automatic doors slide open to welcome recyclers to weigh their loads and pay their fees, rather than just driving up and dropping off.

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They also can see the employees with disabilities at work disassembling and sorting the loads of TVs, computers and small appliances, helping to keep toxic metals such as lead and mercury out of landfills.

The employer — Blue Star Recyclers — was founded in 2009 to hire people with disabilities to work in recycling facilities in Colorado Springs and Denver.

CEO Bill Morris said the social enterprise now employs 42 people with the addition of Boulder's partnership. He said two or three more positions are available at CHaRM.

"We happened to discover that people with autism and other disabilities are actually superior employees and workers in this line of work amongst others," Morris said.

Jones said she hopes Rotary can spread the word to businesses who don't already recycle. She said the more there is to recycle, the more jobs can be created.

As an example of their output, Morris said, one employee can move 16 computers per day, meaning the current four employees can load 64 computers, or two or three palettes.

"We can handle as many as you bring," Morris said. "That would be a great problem to have."

CHaRM handles more than one palette a day, but the facility's goal is to only keep a truckload at a time.

The center is in the process of becoming e-Stewards certified for responsible and domestic recycling. Unethical facilities strip the valuables, such as TVs, and dump the rest they collect.

Next to a few TVs on the cement floor, Dance — who said he has been diagnosed with ADHD, bipolar II disorder and Asperger Syndrome — sorted a palette load of electronic recyclables with his best friend, William Timmons, on Tuesday.

The two said they interviewed for the technician position on Halloween and started work Nov. 8.

"We've found an occupation that we enjoy, it doesn't cut into our (Supplemental Security Income) much and they don't constantly bother us," Dance said, noting while he's not self-sufficient, he's highly functioning.

He said he started off this week off by intentionally throwing a printer across the room after a hammer and screwdriver weren't enough to break it open to reveal whether it contained an ink cartridge — a component with tiny, toxic pieces.

Timmons, 28, who is legally blind but can still see, said if something can't be fixed, why not break it?

"We like to build things too, but it's actually more entertaining to watch what they'll do when you break them," Timmons said.

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